


The Lights Are Misty In the River

by Unosarta



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, M/M, Multi, Non-consensual Polyamory, Not A Fix-It, Secret Empire (Marvel), Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Unhappy Ending, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26016844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unosarta/pseuds/Unosarta
Summary: Tony wakes up to a Steve Rogers who kisses him and says he loves him, but Sharon is here and she's afraid. What's going on, and what happened to the Steve Tony knows?
Relationships: Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 50





	The Lights Are Misty In the River

**Author's Note:**

> Please check the tags before reading. This fic touches a lot of difficult/triggering topics.
> 
> Secret Empire if the Hydra Supreme had taken Arno Stark's rejuvenation pod and woken Tony up early to be with him and Sharon. Yes, we didn't know that Tony was in the pod at this point in canon; yes, I think it's a weird plot device in Tony Stark: Iron Man; yes, I'm still using it.
> 
> Tony/Sharon and Steve/Tony/Sharon appear but are non-consensual.

When he wakes, it’s to large hands on his shoulders. Hands he’s dreamed about countless times. Tony wonders if he’s dreaming now.

Then a kiss to his cheek. “Wake up, Shellhead,” Steve says, and Tony knows he’s dreaming.

Tony doesn’t get the things he wants. Not without a fight. Tony doesn’t just get to have Steve like this.

He tries to ask where he is. He tries to ask what’s happened - the last thing he remembers is the fight with Carol. But the only thing that comes out of his mouth is a rasping whisper even he can’t parse.

Steve chuckles gently. “Don’t try to speak yet, Tony. I’m sure it’s torture for you, but you’ve gotta be patient, okay? I’ll take care of you.”

Tony drifts back from this dream and into soft darkness.

* * *

When he wakes next, it’s to voices. Steve, he would recognize anywhere. A woman, older, cold and distant. Tony tries to sit up, needs a sitrep, needs to move his fingers, needs to do anything but be trapped on a bed.

Steve’s hands are back, pushing him down, spreading across his chest. “Shhh,” Steve says, “rest.” He sounds fond; Tony hasn’t heard him use that tone of voice in years. Not with Tony, anyway.

“Steve?” Tony manages to say through parched lips. “Where are we?”

Steve ruffles a hand through Tony’s hair. “Don’t worry. You need to get your strength back, then I can explain.”

Tony tries to crack an eyelid, tries to see, but Steve just leans down and… kisses him. On the mouth.

The broken sob that rips up from his chest is entirely involuntary. He must still be dreaming, but it feels so real. Steve’s lips are soft and warm on Tony’s, his hand curling in the hair on the base of Tony’s neck, his grip firm. It feels so fucking real.

But it can’t be. It can’t be real, because Tony doesn’t get the things he wants that easily. Not the ones that really matter.

Tony drifts away again.

* * *

When he wakes a third time, Tony knows it’s not a dream because he feels _pain_. His back, his legs, his arms, his face, his eyes: everything hurts. Tony has rarely had call to think of his whole body hurting; usually he can compartmentalize pain into sections and handle them individually.

He can’t remember pain like this since he took off his helmet in the red zone. The pain then curled around every muscle in his body and pulsed in rhythm. Tony feels like it’s a little gauche, but he was almost impressed with the hurt. If he was a masochist, he thinks that’s the sort of pain he’d like.

This isn’t so coordinated, though. This pain feels raw. Tony doesn’t have quite the words to describe it, but he’s known quite a lot of pain in the years he’s been Iron Man. This pain feels like a whole body acid exfoliation. It’s as if every cell in his body has had the phospholipid layer stripped away, and now sits vibrating in place, organelles exposed. He feels like every scratch of blanket against skin when he shifts is scraping exposed muscle underneath. Every breath into aching lungs tastes like coppery blood.

But Tony wouldn’t be a very good masochist, he’s always thought. Regardless of how much pain he’s in, his brain doesn’t stop moving.

He opens his eyes for a heartbeat and the light hitting them is like needles, or a truck. Like a truck made out of needles. Tony must be delirious.

He can hear the voices again, on the distant edge of perception. Steve and someone else, someone he doesn’t quite recognize.

Tony tries to call for them, but even flexing his vocal chords makes them feel like they’re shredding. What the hell happened to him that his body is acting like this?

He can hear footsteps now. The conversation is getting closer, close enough that Tony can make out words.

“You took him off the painkillers?” the woman asks, voice full of concern. Her tone is clipped, like she’s holding herself back. Tony usually associates that tone with people being pissed at him but not wanting to say it outright, but most of the women in his life don’t struggle to communicate their anger with him. Who is this person?

“He needs to wake up,” Steve says. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”

“Please, Steve,” she says placatingly, almost servile, “you’re endangering him. He needs more time in the pod -“

“Sharon,” Steve says fondly, and Tony nearly jerks. That voice could be Sharon’s, but Sharon has _never_ spoken to Steve like that. “I appreciate your concern for him. You know how much you both mean to me.” Tony feels like the world is falling out from under him. What is happening?

And then they must be close enough for Steve to notice that Tony is awake, because there is the sound of movement and then a hand on Tony’s forehead. It’s cool, which would normally feel nice on fevered skin, but it’s unbearable on Tony’s. His eyes flicker open for a moment and the sight of Steve smiling down at him hurts almost as much as the hand on his forehead.

“Hey there, handsome,” Steve says, and this can’t be real. It can’t. It hurts too much to be a dream, unless Tony’s brain has developed new and strange ways to torture him, but it can’t be real. “You were hurt pretty bad, but we’re taking care of you now.”

Steve’s hand is the right size. It feels right; how many times has Tony sat in this position and Steve stood in that one? How many times has Steve looked down at him with concern and scolded him for getting himself hurt? How many times has Tony dreamed that Steve’s concern would mean something more than just as a teammate, than just as a friend? How many times has Tony dreamed of this happening?

But Tony doesn’t get what he wants. Tony doesn’t get what he wants, no matter how badly he wants it. He especially doesn’t get Steve.

He turns to look at Sharon, and she’s staring at him. The look in her eyes isn’t fear, but it’s something close. The kind of low-level anxiety that can only exist from holding your fear just out of sight. The kind of look Tony remembers seeing from Ho Yinsen, however many years ago.

He nods at her and it feels like a question. She nods back and it’s the worst answer Tony can imagine.

This isn’t their Steve.

* * *

Tony is reliving a hell he has tried so hard to avoid.

It’s not that whatever the thing in Steve’s skin is is forcing him to make weapons.

But it has kidnapped him, and every moment it makes him pretend to love it, to tell it what it means to him, to kiss it and fuck it and -

And sometimes to touch her -

No. It is torture, even if it doesn’t mean it to be. Even if it thinks Tony and Sharon love it. Even if it thinks they’re a happy family.

It’s the claustrophobia, that reminds him of Afghanistan. The sense of being watched, of being unable to move for fear that they will notice something.

The facility they’re in isn’t as dark, isn’t as cold, isn’t as cramped as the caves, but it feels like a prison all the same. The thing, whatever it is, has tried to add personal touches. A picture of Tony and Steve. A picture of Steve and Sharon. A picture of all three of them that it took, where Sharon and Tony both look into the camera with smiles on their faces and dead eyes, like they’ve been taxidermied.

Tony wants to die. He considers it every day: trying to escape so it will end; finding something sharp; finding something poisonous; or even just asking Sharon to do it.

But the first time he almost had his chance, when he found a tiny little scrap of metal sharp enough to cut, Sharon had met his eyes while the thing in Steve’s skin wasn’t looking and shook her head so sharply that Tony felt her fear on his skin.

There was something knowing in her eyes, something like recognition. Tony isn’t sure if she stopped him so that she wouldn’t be alone, or for some other reason, but he doesn’t begrudge it of her. She’s suffering just as bad as he.

* * *

Having Sharon there is almost a comfort, when the thing in Steve’s skin makes them tell it they love it. Tony can look at her sidelong when he says, “I’ve loved you for years, since the first time I met you,” and know that it’s true, even if it’s not for this Steve. He can look at her as she says, “I love you so much I’ve died for you before. I’d die for you again. I felt like I was dying when I lost your child.”

Tony doesn’t remember Sharon being pregnant, but he knows she isn’t lying. He knows she’s looking at Tony as she says it because she’s really saying it to their Steve, to the Steve who isn’t here, the Steve who doesn’t make them touch him.

The Steve who doesn’t touch _them_.

If Sharon weren’t here, Tony isn’t sure that he would be strong enough not to enjoy it. That he wouldn’t succumb to the illusion just for the sake of being able to have _any Steve_ , even if this one isn’t real. Even if this one’s existence is a cruelty.

The thing in Steve’s skin loves that they look at each other. “The two most important people in my life. You should love each other just as much as I love you,” it says, and Tony wants to vomit. The real Steve, wherever he is, doesn’t love Tony. He loves Sharon. He’s always only ever had eyes for Sharon.

Tony nods dumbly along as it speaks, but Sharon catches his eye. She looks at him fiercely, raises her chin, and says, “I do love you,” to Tony.

He doesn’t - he can’t - his mouth drops open. It feels like a betrayal of the real Steve, of _her_ Steve, to say this. She doesn’t love Tony.

But there’s something in the gentleness when she lays her hand on his hand, the way her gaze softens when it must see how those words twist in Tony’s gut, that makes him stop. There must be some other meaning there.

* * *

_Six Months Later_

Tony hasn’t seen Sharon since they were freed from Hydra Supreme. It's not just that she’s been around Steve, the real one, who Tony can’t bear to face.

There’s something about seeing her that fills Tony with dread. She knows exactly what he did, what he had to do to survive. She watched him, lips wrapped around Hydra Supreme’s cock, as he imagined it was Steve’s cock. There’s no way she knows, she can’t possibly, but something about the idea eats away at Tony. He can’t see her because he’s afraid of himself and how he’ll react.

Still. He needs to know.

Steve is out of town - he and Sharon are currently living in DC - the night that Tony knocks on her door.

Sharon’s face is perfectly blank when she sees him, just like Tony’s is. It’s a habit whose barbs they’ll have to carefully unhook from their skin. She leads Tony inside without touching him, without greeting, and it feels like a relief that she understands.

Tony wonders if she’s as afraid of touching him as he is of touching her.

They sit across from each other on couches that Steve no doubt bought. They have a similar look to the ones in Hydra Supreme’s facility. Tony’s stomach flips in fear when he sees them, when he remembers all the things Hydra Supreme did to him and Sharon on couches just like these.

Sharon doesn’t comment or react, but Tony can see recognition in her eyes. Somehow that helps; she must have had a similar reaction when Steve bought them.

Tony looks at his hands. A mistake; he remembers when the Hydra Supreme made him touch her, and it’s worse than seeing the couches.

This time she does speak, though. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Tony can’t help how his body shrinks up on itself at the words. “Wasn’t yours either,” he whispers, not looking at her or the couches, eyes carefully affixed to the floor.

He imagines she reacts similarly, but he doesn’t know. He can’t know. Sharon is strong, immeasurably stronger than Tony that she can be around Steve at all. Somehow not knowing is easier than knowing. It’s not like when they were in the facility together, where he had to be aware of her at all times, in case she had a warning for him, in case she was going to hurt herself and leave Tony alone with the Hydra Supreme.

Now he can be around her without looking, without watching, and it feels like relief. Like stretching his legs after sitting down for a long time.

Sharon waits for him to speak.

Right. What Tony came here for. “You - you said you loved me, when it - when _he_ asked. You looked like you meant it.”

Tony can’t bring himself to ask the question he really wants - what did you mean? - but Sharon must understand.

She folds her wrinkled hands together, hands Tony has seen in places and contexts he never would have wanted to, and Tony can’t help that his eyes are drawn to them. Such a subtle shift now would have been an earthquake in the facility. A desperate cry for attention.

“Sorry,” Tony says, though he’s not sure what for: for bringing it up; for reminding her of that time; for being here at all; or for managing to survive.

She shakes her head, slow and wide like she doesn’t have to hide it. Like she’s intentionally changing the movement from - from how she did it then. “Not your fault,” she says again.

They sit there, on those awful couches, for several long minutes of silence.

“He does love you,” Sharon says, and Tony doesn’t have to ask who she means. “I don’t begrudge either of you that.”

Tony feels his breath catch in his throat.

“I said it because I meant it. You kept me alive. You got me out of there. It doesn’t have to be like - like what _he_ wanted, for it to be real.”

Tony feels the tears falling down his face before he registers that he’s crying. He’s not sure the cause: the knowledge that the real Steve, that _her_ Steve, might think of him in that way; that Sharon is, in some way, forgiving him; or that maybe Tony doesn’t need to be forgiven in the first place.

He dismisses the first out of hand; she probably meant that he loves Tony like she does - as respect, as gratitude, as comradeship.

The last also is dismissed - Tony has done a lot of awful things in his life, some of which he can’t even remember, and there’s never going to be a moment when he is absolved of all of the wrong he’s done. There’ll never be a moment where he doesn’t deserve to repent for it either.

Tony feels so very small, alone on a couch much too big for one person to sit, when he says, “thank you.” He doesn’t mean to, but it comes out sounding reverent. Like a prayer.

Sharon doesn’t say anything at all. Just sits there with him, not asking him to leave.

After another long, long silence, Tony says, “I meant it too. What I said. For… for similar reasons.”

It might be the most he’s managed to say to her in one go since before - since before.

Sharon says, “I’m pregnant,” then, and Tony’s heart stops.

“Do you,” he begins, but he can’t finish the question. He’s not sure he wants to know whose it is.

“Yours,” she says, because Sharon has never been particularly gentle with Tony.

Tony wants to die. He feels it more certainly now than he has in months, since… since they got out. Since he watched someone cuff the Hydra Supreme and lock him away.

Tony did this to her. He can remember every time the Hydra Supreme made them - made them fuck, every touch between her and Tony an apology, every look begging forgiveness.

Hydra Supreme would smile as he made them do it, run a hand lovingly over their bodies, whisper kind words of encouragement to them. Tony isn’t sure he’s ever hated anyone as much as that man, in those moments.

Maybe himself now. Maybe he’s willing to hate himself more than the Hydra Supreme, because he got Sharon _pregnant._ Tony had found receipts on Steve’s card for pregnancy tests during the war, during a period Tony has no memory of. He’s found appointments to doctors who specialize in fertility treatments.

And none of them stuck.

Tony simultaneously needs to leave and to never move again. He feels it so viciously, so violently within himself, that desire to die. He’s fucked up too much, destroyed too much good in the world. He can’t come back from this.

Tony wonders if this is what the Hydra Supreme had wanted. To break him so thoroughly that there is no fixing him.

T’Challa had told Tony privately, where no one else would hear, that the Hydra Supreme really was an almost perfect copy of Steve Rogers, aside from his willingness to manipulate others and work with Hydra. He didn’t know what had happened to Tony inside the facility, so he didn’t know how much those words felt like a slap to the face.

Sharon touches Tony’s shoulder with a finger and his world snaps back into focus. He’s slid off the couch. His cheeks are wet. His mouth is dry. Sharon is sitting in front of him, not looking at him.

It’s strange how the gesture doesn’t make him fall apart like a hug would. The Hydra Supreme had made them hug and kiss. He had watched them until they were casually intimate, until holding a hand to Sharon’s cheek was a habit etched in Tony’s body.

They never touched like Sharon is touching him, like even the barest of contact will do. It still hurts, but it doesn’t feel like a weapon against his skin.

“I can’t,” she begins, before trailing off. “I can’t raise this child.”

Tony nods. He’s surprised she’s telling him about this instead of just getting an abortion quietly. Tony doesn’t think this is a punishment, doesn’t think that she wants him to know so that he will blame himself and suffer, even if that is what’s happening. But he doesn’t have any other explanation.

“I want… I want you to. To have them. To take care of them.”

Tony is numb. Usually he feels everything too much, too intensely, but somehow his brain must be broken, because he’s sitting here on the floor and he’s certain he might never feel again.

“What?” he asks. “Why?”

Sharon removes her fingers from his shoulder carefully, like she’s afraid sudden movement might cause Tony to explode. He doesn’t blame her.

“I… just… just let me see them once or twice a year.”

Tony feels like Sharon doesn’t understand what she’s doing to him. If telling him wasn’t supposed to be a punishment, he has no idea what this is.

“I can’t… I can’t…” she says, face carefully blank but voice wretched. “I can’t look at them every day and see _him_.”

“And I can?” Tony asks, voice just as wretched as hers.

She nods. “You can.”

Tony can’t help the little sob that escapes his throat when she says that.

“You can and you will,” she says, “because your guilt complex is a mile wide.” Sharon smiles slightly. The Hydra Supreme would never have let them say something so carelessly cruel. It feels like she’s hit him, but also like cool water poured over Tony’s skin.

“I… okay. Okay,” Tony says, because she’s not wrong. His guilt complex could level countries. “But, why meet them…?”

“I need…” Sharon looks away. She hides her face from him.

Tony waits.

“I need them to rely on me. I need them to wait for me, so… so that I’ll be here for them to see.”

Tony understands her loud and clear. In a way, Sharon is keeping them both alive by doing this, but the cost seems astronomical to Tony. Unbearable.

“How are you going to keep this from Steve?” he asks her, voice low and gentle.

Sharon shakes her head. “He already knows. He realized before I did.”

“Sharon…”

“No,” she cuts Tony off. “No.”

“He’s going to want…”

“Steve wants many things,” Sharon says, her voice full of bitterness. “This isn’t one that he’s going to get.”

Tony nods, unsure what else to do.

“He…” she starts to say, before falling silent. “He wanted to try… the three of us.”

Tony recoils in horror. He doesn’t need any explanation to understand exactly what she means. “No…”

She nods. “He’s never been good with… he doesn’t understand. He thinks he can have the two people he loves most. He doesn’t see…”

Tony wants to vomit. He wants to dig his hair out if his scalp. He clamps his teeth around the soft flesh of his cheek and clasps his hands together so tightly they go white.

He may have wanted Steve for most of his life, since before he even met the guy - may even want Steve now, despite _everything_ that’s happened - but he can’t help the little bit of him that hates Steve for asking that, for even thinking it. The little bit of Tony that imagines Steve being jealous of the Hydra Supreme can’t stop from hating Steve for it.

“I can’t be around when he looks at them,” Sharon says, hand going to her stomach, “and sees us. I… I can’t.”

Tony nods. No child deserves to have that hanging over their head.

“You’ll be a good dad, Tony,” Sharon says sadly. “I’ll have a friend leave them with you. I don’t care if you let him meet them, just…” She turns away again.

Tony nods. “Thank you, Sharon.” He touches a finger to her shoulder, barely there, and she looks up quickly, meeting his gaze not in fear or disgust but surprise. Maybe even gratitude.

Tony thought he had ‘world’s guiltiest man’ on lock, but something in Sharon’s gaze makes him rethink that. She said his guilt complex was a mile wide, but somehow he has to wonder how big hers is.

It seems like everyone who loves Steve Rogers feels an unhealthy amount of guilt.

“You’re not the only one who needs this,” Tony says, his finger still on her shoulder. “Take care. For them. I’ll tell them all about you.”

He can see a tear tracing the wrinkles in Sharon’s cheek. She nods, gets up, and goes to the kitchen. She pours a glass of water that neither of them will end up drinking.

When Tony leaves, it’s with a phone number and a promise to call.

He’s not sure he will, but he clutches the paper it’s written on to his chest like a lifeline anyway.


End file.
